Today’s RSC courageously stalks the House

Edwin J. Feulner

Edwin J. Feulner's leadership as President of The Heritage Foundation has transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America's powerhouse of conservative ideas.
Feulner first joined The Heritage Foundation as a founding Trustee in 1973. He later became President in 1977, Heritage's fourth in four years. After accepting the job, Feulner was determined to chart a new course for the struggling think tank.

Feulner's schedule is often full because of the many hats he has worn over the years: He is the former President and currently serves as the Treasurer of the Mont Pelerin Society; he has served as Trustee and former Chairman of the Board of The Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Member of the Board of the National Chamber Foundation; a Board Member of the Institut d' Etude Politique; and member of the Board of Trustees of Regis University in Denver.

He is a longtime officer and director of three grant-making foundations: the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Aequus Institute and the Thomas A. Roe Foundation.

Feulner is the former President of the Philadelphia Society, and past Director of the Sequoia Bank, the Council for National Policy, the Acton Institute, the International Republican Institute, the American Council in Germany, the Lehrman Institute and George Mason University.

Since its founding, the RSC has never relished bucking party leadership, but it has never shied away from it either. As one member noted in the earliest days, “We exist to bring pressure from the right on the leadership. If we don’t do that, the only pressure will be from the left, and policies will inevitably move in that direction.”

Let’s look at what the RSC has done this year. It introduced and ultimately won passage of the Cut, Cap and Balance Act. It pushed for H.R. 1 to cut spending deeper than originally proposed. Its leaders have pressed for passage of important free trade agreements while expressing deep reservations about renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance. Beyond doubt, the RSC has had tremendous influence on this year’s legislative agenda — pushing Congress outside the safe confines of conventional Beltway wisdom.

In the process, the RSC has ruffled some feathers — just as it has done from the beginning.

Conservative members of the House first started organizing when President Richard Nixon made the Family Assistance Plan — offering individuals a federally guaranteed annual income, without any requirement to seek work — a centerpiece of his 1969 agenda. It was anathema to conservatives. Rep. Edward Derwinski (R-Ill.) rallied House conservatives to oppose a rule allowing the bill to come to a vote. They failed to defeat the rule, but succeeded in getting a large majority of Republicans to vote against it — a telling blow to Republican leadership. It didn’t pass the Senate.

Another major fight between GOP conservatives and GOP leadership came in 1971 with Senate passage of the Child Development Act. CDA called for comprehensive child care in the United States. The legislation had already cleared the House 203-181 and seemed unstoppable. But that was before conservatives engaged.

Working with outside organizations such asthe American Conservative Union and conservative intellectual leaders like Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley, Jr., the RSC brought the fight to the White House. Nixon vetoed the legislation. This early example of an effective “inside-outside” operation proved to conservatives that they could make a difference.

These fights led several conservative members of Congress to form the Republican Study Committee in 1973. The decision was not easy; many members were worried of the RSC’s “high visibility.” As the first chairman of the RSC, Congressman Derwinski told me, “The senior members were worried about what the leadership would think; the freshmen were worried about what the senior members in their state delegation would think, and everybody was worried about how the press would label the operation.” Sound familiar?

Over the last 40 years, the RSC has fought many policy battles. Sometimes it worked alongside Republican leaders — to pass the Kemp-Roth tax cuts in the 1980s and welfare reform in the 1990s, for example. On other issues — such as the 1990 Andrews Air Force Base tax hike deal and the Medicare Part D battle of 2003 — the group has bucked party leadership.